Buttercup's Frocks

Musings on personal style by a fatshionista of a certain age.

[buttercupsfrocks]

Just wanted to say that you are a fantastically brilliant fashion writer.

That is exceptionally kind of you!

[buttercupsfrocks]

Of course I did, Tumblr! What kind of a question's that?! How better to celebrate gettting the thumbs-up from the eye hospital and a date for the retinal scan of my other eye prior to surgery? Impending million quid price hike in utility bills? Pshaw! Pish tush! By the way it's an XL and I could have probably made do with an M but there wasn't one. We're talking capacious-and-a-half so plenty of room for larger bodies, layers, or both. Furthermore it's soft, thick, über cosy, and 100% cotton. Hits 5' 3" moi round about the knee. Might wear it with black tight and stompy boots. Might even wear it over a long black skirt with emerald green tights.

Toodles!

[buttercupsfrocks]

Greetings, tumblr. I warn you this isn't going to be much of a post for a whole raft of reasons:-

It's hotter than Satan's buttcrack outside and, consequently, inside my un-airconditioned first floor flat.

It's impossible for me to look soigné or remotely put together when I'm a sweaty, irritable mess.

There is a British Gas engineer currently boring holes in the outside walls of my flat with the aim of relocating my gas meter. The same thing is going on in my downstairs neighbours' flat. We have no say in this noisy, intrusive, cat-terrorising folderol. They've been threatening to do it for four years and we are literally the last house in the last street to be done. 'twas ever thus.

I had in fact written about two thirds of this original post and saved it as a draft. Tumblr since appears to have eaten that draft and washed it down with a nice Chianti. I have since lost the will to live.

My hair, as you can see, looked like crap when I took these pics.

The reason my hair looks like shite is because twelve days ago I had a cataract in my right eye removed and getting one's 'do done is not recommended for a couple of weeks after surgery.

Prior to surgery I had to take out my right contact lens and affect an eye-patch for a couple of weeks. I did not look piratical. Mainly because the size and positioning of my ears made the elastic intolerable after twenty minutes tops. Instead I had to make do with a Moorfields eyeshield stuffed with tissues and stuck to my face with Micropore. In 40ºC.

I'm hoping to get the left eye sorted late September/early October. A few weeks after that I'll find out whether I'll still need to wear contact lenses for distance and what prescription my new readers will be.

So, yeah, cataracts. Only partial but rubbish genetics on my paternal grandmother's side have resulted in those and an official diagnosis of Pathological Myopia along with a squint I didn't even know I had. The cataract/next-best-thing-to-blind double whammy has been causing me double vision and a blind spot in my right eye for years and the situation was becoming critical. I'd also experienced occular migraines during lockdown, though I think they were down to stress. But, in short, my eyesight was a shitshow and I'd gotten whiplash from the conflicting advice I've received by eye specialists the length and breadth of London. I'm relieved to say Moorfields cataract department got the last word. Thus far I'm optimistic. Three weeks ago I couldn't read the numbers on buses unless I was physically boarding one. Now I could probably see them from space.

But back to the main content of the post. Identically-cut Monki frock, gingham edition. Thus far they've offered this design in black, beige, light blue, orange, and lilac gingham. But there's a reason why the emerald green variation called to my heart.

Between the ages of 4 and 9 I attended a tiny private co-educational school. Admittedly this was many years ago but even then it was quaint and anachronistic. It was run by three sisters called Fowle and I had an elocution teacher who was older than God's dog and still wore long skirts and a bonnet. On Mondays we had to march, in single file, around the room we took dance classes in, in freshly whitened plimsoles to the strains of what later became the theme music to Monty Python's Flying Circus; this mysterious custom was known as Drill. We walked to the Headmistress's home for lunch every day, which was cooked by the kinder of her two sisters. That's how small the school was. It was also attended by kids of every conceivable nationality and ethnicity, and after it closed in the early 70s, the building subsequently became one of Erin Pizzey's shelters for women fleeing somestic violence.

As a sprog my summer school uniform featured a green gingham dress, which I always rather liked. But – get this – the size of the gingham squares increased proportionally with the age and height of the wearer. So, while my dresses had teeny tiny squares on them, the "seniors" had big ones on theirs. By the time I was of high school age and attending a different institution, sixth formers were no longer required to wear uniform, but as soon as I clocked this dress the exotic allure of achieving Big Green Square Status came rushing back and I knew I had to claim it.

Stay weird, tumblr. (And hydrated).

[buttercupsfrocks]

Would it be possible to see your cat on every post?

I'll do my best. He certainly does his!

[buttercupsfrocks]

WRT the marvellous LJ communities of old (which btw I really really miss too - so many! so niche! so genuinely *community*! So helpful! With conversation!) - I wondered if you'd found anything that fits (!) on reddit? Not fatshion related, but when you mentioned everything being geared towards the young&trendy I immediately thought of Old Hag Fashion over there (sort posts by top of all time to get a good flavour). Reddit is as close to LJ as I can get, and plenty of fatshion content too. HTH x

Thanks for the suggestion. I never even knew that! I've always avoided reddit because I've always thought of it as a hotbed of seething fatphobia. I will check it out forthwith!

[buttercupsfrocks]

Yo, tumblr.

Some thoughts I’ve been having of late to accompany yet another variation of this Monki frock, from last year’s summer sale, if memory serves me correctly. What can I say? When something works, why fix the dang thing?

I miss Fatshionista. For those who weren’t acquainted it was a livejournal community that, at its zenith, boasted about ten thousand members worldwide, mainly cis women and trans folk; all fat, most political about fat, and all of the mind that fat people should be better served for clothing options. While the community had its fair share of drama around hot button perennials such as cultural appropriation, it also provided plenty of food for thought. I did at least as much shutting up and listening as I did rolling my eyes, which is saying something at my age. Not that I was my age back then but I was still at least 20 years older than everybody else on there. Or why I lurked for a year before sharing my first OOTD. But it’s that aspect of Fatshionista I miss the most, the honest feedback, the helpful advice, the pooling of resources like whether anyone had tried their luck with such and such a brand, and if so what its merits or shortcomings were.

As the internet morphed and the fatosphere grew, the community went in one of two directions. The most politicised became the next wave of activists, penning blogs that spawned newspaper articles and book deals; while the style mavens started blogging and collaborating with the fashion industry, firstly as as models, then as designers, and consultants. At the time many criticised this commercialisation whereas I felt more positively inclined. By my reckoning the more our community made inroads into the mainstream, the more clothing options we’d have. The more clothing options we have the better we feel, the better we feel the more confident we become in our right to take up space and advocate for ourselves in other areas, eventually resulting in a societal shift in the way fat people are perceived and treated. Idealistic? Sure. And probably not in my lifetime but, to quote the zeitgeist, every ending has a beginning. 

These days, however, I’m beginning to think those who lamented the commercialisation of fatshion had a point. Bloggers became vloggers, influencers, and content creators, shilling for anyone who asked, and all the while claiming to give honest reviews. (Ever read a bad one? Me neither. Or why I turned down Bon Marché and J D Williams). And amidst all the shiny!shiny!new! and lucrative brand collabs, genuine honesty slowly bit the dust, along with the ingenious hacks, instant feedback on quality and fit, and most of all the celebration of true, diverse personal style. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still 100% less pernicious to fill my feed with than mainstream ladymags and sometimes I even get to see women with my body shape. But, just like the mainstream ladymags, it’s exclusively youth oriented. And a depressingly unimaginative, cookie-cutter interpretation of youth at that. And, while I’m aware of how predictably get-off-my-lawn that sounds, I have had a gutful of balayage, beachy waves, drag queen contouring, porn-mandated bald poonani, fake tan; and nail, hair and eyelash extensions. Femininity has never been so prescriptive, performative or oppressive in my lifetime and I was born in the sodding 50s. 

As static images on Insta are superceded by reels, and the next even fresher means of flogging fashion waits in the wings to replace them, has the plus size retail landscape changed all that much since Fatshionista? For the better in terms of online resources, though larger and infinifats are still often short-changed. On the other hand there are literally no dedicated plus-size bricks and mortar chains left in my city. Evans, Elvi, Simply Be, Taking Shape, and Anne Harvey are either online or defunct, and we never had a Yours to begin with. All the big stores with plus-size departments bit the dust on the high street aeons ago, and any mainstream chain that wants our custom still won’t stock the clothes in store or show them on plus sized bodies on their websites – even those that target an older demographic. Which is why Seasalt, Boden, and White Stuff can continue to whistle for my hard-earned dosh. Though there’s always the stand alone Marina Rinaldi boutique where a plain neoprene sweatshirt will set you back £290. 

Or perhaps not.

…which circuitously leads me to the other thing that’s been chomping at my gusset of late. Ethical shopping bores. Don’t get me wrong. I habitually recycle, have shopped secondhand since I was 15, and have jetisoned ocean polluting sponges and clingfilm for life. I draw the line at Ecover washing up liquid mind; it’s rubbish. (See? Honest to a fault). No, I’m talking sustainable clothing labels. Well, the few that deign to make plus sizes in any event. I’m talking clothes you have to take out a mortgage on. You can start guilt-tripping me about buying my clothes from places I can afford when fat women enjoy the same plethora of choice that straight-sized women have. And I swear if I have to read one more sentence with the word “intentional” in it, I’ll boak. If most of the vloggers spouting this holier than thou hooey really only bought two items a year when their predecessors were hanging in ribbons, they’d have mighty short careers. But maybe a wardrobe full of five hundred quid Selkie backhanders doesn’t count. 

It’s intentional alright; on the part of the brands who’d go tits up in short order if their customers didn’t buy owt from one end of the year to the next. What it isn’t is honest. 

Here endeth the rant.

[buttercupsfrocks]

Yo, Tumblr! I have officially emerged from grading student work and, to celebrate, I wore this fantastic Collusion frock to my university's Summer Show. I won't lie; the moment it debuted on the ASOS website I hit that add-to-basket button faster than you can say YASS! It's one of two frocks I own that have kind of a Mølby vibe, (the other being the Twisted Wunder raspberry gingham dress with the huge collar I mentioned a couple of posts back). Only, you know, more affordable for those of us expecting the gas and lecky bill from hell.

I'm sure there's a way of tying perfect, well-behaved bows that lie flat somewhere on the internet. I really should consider looking for a tutorial.

As it's a maxi you can't see my feet in any of the photos but, just so as you know, I was wearing my trusty lilac Ecco sneakers.

As you might imagine, it's very good for twirling. And it also matches my living room colour scheme. (I don't think they've ever appeared in my blog, but the Roman blinds in this room are orange). Seriously though, it ticks so many boxes for me. You can dress it up with statement accessories for posh, or put on some thong sandals and take it on a trip to the seaside. It's made from that cool, floaty, muslin-y cotton that's a pig to iron mind.

It's a quick one tonight, so pardon me while I summon my familiar...

[buttercupsfrocks]

Oh, Irregular Choice, you are killing me!

Damn. I've just spent far too much money on footwear I needed to be swayed by a Pikachu bag I'd like.

*resolves to pretend I never saw them*

[buttercupsfrocks]

I used to think people who had their clothes tailored were rolling in it. Somehow the word always suggested Saville Row rather than that-nice-little-bloke-in-the-dry-cleaners-up-the-road-from-the-tube. However, in recent years I've come to rely on the latter as my sewing skills are risible. I have to say he's a diamond and so is his good lady wife, who managed to source a matching set of covered leather buttons on eBay when I lost a couple off my coat.

Being a shortarse, as maxis and midaxis have become more commonplace, I'm in and out the tailor's on the regs. While I'm used to wearing my dresses long, there's long and there's "falling arse over tit on the pavement" long if you know what I'm saying. This ASOS Edition frock was no exception but that's not the half of it.

I spend a lot of time cruising ASOS, home of beloved label, Collusion, because there is just so much stuff in their Curve section it's easy to miss something. And so it was with this ASOS Edition frock, which had been reduced by the time I made its aquaintance. The reviews, which are incredibly helpful for the most part, were mixed. Oddly enough it was a bad one that tipped the balance in its favour. The author was displeased with the print which she'd thought would be more subtle and pronounced "cartoony". All the reviews warned it came up big but I wasn't expecting it to be quite as vast as it was. Never mind batwing, the sleeves were batshit. They came down to my elbows and were a mile wide, as was the bodice. By the time my tailor had remodelled it, it had cost me the same as it would have done full price but I'm positively made up with it.

When it came to accessories, it had to be my trusty Les Néréides flower earrings, which as well as incorporating blue, pink and yellow, have the same scribbly kid's drawing feel as the print. Plus they're flowers.

Can you believe I scored those fiiiiine irridescent sneakers for thirty quid? It would have been so rude to leave them in the shop.

[buttercupsfrocks]

So tardy these days, I know, Tumblr. I actually took these pics a fortnight ago; you know, when we had OMG! SPRING! for five minutes. It was so warm on one of those days that I went into the uni wearing nought but a lightweight frock and a denim jacket. (Cue typical crazy British weather-cycling for the next two months before spring happens in earnest). Today, by contrast it was cold and windy. So windy that, as I struggled down the street with my granny-shopper on wheels full of cast-offs to bestow upon the RSPCA shop, the wind, which was behind me, took hold of my shopper and literally blew it and me down the street. Which was something of a novelty and not entirely pleasant.

So this was a Monki dress from last summer, which for some reason I never got around to photographing, though I wore it loads. I'd seen it on a friend on Facebook the night before I bought it and knew I'd DIE if this print wasn't hanging in my wardrobe in short order. It's mega versatile, being capacious enough to layer beneath, and thin enough to layer over without hampering movement; so a good buy all round. Mind you, in keeping with the current vogue for oversized billowy frocks, I ended up having to have six inches off the bottom because I was tripping over the damn thing.

This was the dress I wore into the university when it turned briefly warm. It's been a while since I've seen an M&S dress I liked enough to buy; about 30 years in fact! I've bought separates aplenty over the years, and knickers of course, as behoves every Englishwoman. (Hey! You think I jest? Even Margaret Thatcher bought her smalls at M&S. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the HRH does, Rigby and Peller bras notwithstanding). Anyway. Digressing. Their frocks rarely fit me right and always look a bit M&S-ish if you know what I mean. There's always something that just slightly misses the mark. The colour's not quite the Pantone shade du jour, or there's a superfluous design detail right where you wish it wasn't. While there's always a chance I've developed Selective M&S Blindness in my dotage, (I'm convinced this is the only reason they've endured), the colours and print of this dress put me in mind of 70s Liberty. Sadly it's stretch viscose rather than Tana Lawn cotton but what do you want for twenty five quid?

I knew exactly how I'd accessorise it. Who says red and green can only be worn at Christmas? Not moi! Those 30s beads I'm wearing used to hang down to my belly button. They came from a vintage clothes shop in Pimlico called Cornucopia and I've broken and had to restring them that many times they've shrunk.

I could never be faithful to any one era if I was fortunate enough to find vintage clothes on the regular. 30s beads, 80s revival, 70s Liberty, just bring it all on...

[buttercupsfrocks]

Yo, Tumblr! Given that my previous attempt to capture the awesomeness of these trouserings resulted in grotty 'n' grainy, I decided to try again with (marginally) improved lighting conditions... together with the previously-effused-over, shimmery, baby pink Oliver Bonas cardi I scored in the post-Christmas sales.

See? Shimmery! You know how sometimes an item of clothing speaks to your inner tween on a really deep level? Well, this sweater brought two long submerged memories to the surface. The first is probably pre-tween, truth be told. I'm in my penultimate year of primary school and we pupils are encouraged to knit as many six inch squares for charity as we can during term time. These are duly sewn together to make blankets for folks in need and, suffice to say, it takes me months on end to knit a single bloody square. Be that as it may, one of my peers casts on some baby-pink wool onto rose gold metal needles. And as a child who has never been permitted to honour her girliness something about this combo just sends me into spun sugar frazzles of squee. Substitute rose gold for silver and I'm sure you get my drift. Then there's the buttons OMG. I'm 12 years old and diamanté jewellery is having a Moment, as it does every now and then. And I ask my dad if I can maybe have a diamanté something for Christmas. And because my dad is really good at presents I get a little drawstring bag full of sparkly nonsense. I don't remember all of it – my initials, a snowfllake, which I may even still have somewhere, and most definitely a star. Because it's the 70s and the Star Man will shortly be exhorting us to let all the children boogie. So, yeah, bit of a double whammy of nostalgia, this sweater.

I don't know about you, Tumblr, but the moment things start to look even a tiny bit spring-like, I start cruising my go-to websites to see what I might be wearing come the warmer weather. And Taking Shape never lets me down.

I especially love the one on the far right. And right now they've got 20% off.

I also keep finding myself drawn to this Twisted Wunder frock on ASOS...

I haven't a clue whether that collar will look absurd on me but there's only one way to find out.

Hey wanna see an epic Ubi photo-bomb?

Why, yes, he does know exactly how cute he is.

[buttercupsfrocks]

Hey, guess what, Tumblr? There's been actual, honest-to-gosh light in my living room for 3 whole days. It's still nippy out, obvs, and is likely to get infinitely nippier before spring. But it almost felt vaguely springlike this weekend. So I thought I'd better take some snaps pronto before I have to resort to the flash again.

Sorry my posts have been so sporadic. Not only has the flat been shrouded in winter gloom and my hair in desperate need of a cut, I started a new teaching job involving a disproportionate amount of admin and a learning curve as steep as Ben Nevis. In addition to the stress of being so far out of my comfort zone I might as well be on Mars, I had to do my accounts, which I hate. Still at least what little National Insurance I owed has been levelled by the rebate I'm due for.

So, to cheer myself up, I may have gone just a tad mad in the Gudrun Sjoden sale. It was my intention to buy a full price tunic I'd fallen in love with online, but in real life it turned out to be a crushing disappointment both colour and fit wise. So I left with a hi-lo sweater (Frankly I wish I could have stretched to two, it's so perfect), and this tunic/dress, both 100% non-itchy wool. Although I receive all the seasonal catalogues by post I can't remember seeing this colourblocked lovely before or I'd have been lusting after it all winter. As you might recall I'm big on a teal/raspberry combo and a keen proponent of the three quarter length sleeve. There's also plenty of layering room so I reckon I'll be getting a ton of wear out of this. The sweater comes from the same range but is a brighter shade of raspberry with some subtle dark blue details.

I realise these tights aren't a perfect match but I reckon they'll do. At some point Snag are bound to come up with the perfect shade and I'll pounce.

[buttercupsfrocks]

Well, Tumblr, it's here, and 2021 better take care to avoid the door giving it's arse an almightly thwack on the way out.

Sooo, guess who had a Covid scare just before Christmas? Cockily I'd dared to attend a tiny works do. Ten of us in the office for a couple of hours with tea and stickies, including home made brownies, a Portuguese King Cake, and designer donuts, be still my beating heart. I have been into the office precisely once over the last 22 months and hadn't even met one of my newer colleagues face to face. Plus we were doing Secret Santa. So I thought what the hell, especially as I'd just started a new p/t teaching job in East London and had twice tubed it home during rush hour, albeit appropriately clad in an FPP2. Hah! That'll learn me to de-mask and eat dainties. The following day, the colleague I'd been sitting next to for the duration tested positive, followed by a second the day after, who reckoned his daughter had brought it back from school. Cue me back in social isolation for ten days because OMG-icron, taking daily lateral flow tests and, after being pinged by the dreaded track 'n' trace, a PCR. This was just before our blithering shipwreck of a PM succeeded in terrifying the country to such an extent that, for a while, there was no longer a testing kit to be had in the UK. Somehow I remained negative throughout so yay Pfizer, I guess.

Since 2021 had begun with my losing a beloved family member to Covid, I'm relieved to see the back of it. Let's hope the virus continues to morph into ever less deadly mutations during 2022, and thank God and/or science for vaccines. The NHS and Big Pharma can stick me thrice a year in perpetuity if need be.

It hasn't all been bad mind. Ever since this nightmare kicked off I'd harboured a fantasy of celebratory dancing with friends. It was a means of keeping myself sane in a world I no longer recognised; what I'd do one day when all this was over. Well, obviously, it's not over (yet) but at least things improved, albeit slowly for those of us with underlying conditions. And in October, just in the nick of time, I did get to throw some shapes outside of the confines of my flat.

I won't lie, I was nervous at the prospect of travelling out of London to attend the wedding of a long time friend, especially as I knew there'd be almost a hundred guests – but lemme tell you, je ne regret rien. While I have seen my bestie in the interim, there were others in attendance I hadn't seen since well before Covid and it was wonderful to spend time with them. We made a weekend of it and I loved every minute. Plus the (Willy Wonka themed) wedding itself was amazing. And, yes, of course I cried. So did Karen. And one of the grooms. In fact I strongly doubt there was a dry eye in the house.

Of course it's all buckle-up-and here-we-go-again now but I remain uncharacteristically optimistic. And I've learned to cherish the mundane and previously taken for granted. Like dancing to Tiger Feet with your mates.

Seriously how cute is this sweater? I had no idea Skinny Dip made clothes, much less clothes in size Fat. I watched it for months as it got further and further reduced, eventually bagging it for fifteen quid. Not bad since it started off at thirty-five. It's also incredibly warm considering it doesn't have a scintilla of actual wool in it. My only regret is that I can't accessorise it with my shrimp earrings as they're entirely the wrong shade of pink. Mind you that would go against my personal fashion rule of no more than one eccentric/novelty/I'm-Mad-Me component to an outfit, so it's probably just as well.

I have ordered a couple of items to wear in the current sales, including yet another Monki puff-sleeved frock, (this time in a red Madras seersucker), that I ordered to wear on Christmas Day a fair bit in advance. Hermes, the devil's own courier company, assured me they'd be delivering it several days in advance too, only to send me another email moments later saying "an exception" had occurred so they wouldn't. I later learned from Monki Custromer Services that this is code for "Hermes lost my parcel" after they suddenly refunded me for a return I hadn't even seen, never mind returned. I then had to re-order the bastard after Christmas in the fond hope it might arrive in time for spring. As ill luck would have it Hermes are also the courier favoured by Oliver Bonas, from whom I ordered the softest, cosiest, oversized, baby pink cardi to go with my rainbow pastel culottes, (see my previous post). Let's hope they don't have another "exception" because there are currently no more left in my size.

Pray for me, Tumblr. It's shot through with silver thread so fine it shimmers, and has diamanté buttons and star shapes knitted into the design. I wanted it so badly I'd resolved to pay full price if it didn't make it into the sale.

[buttercupsfrocks]

Yo, Tumblr. I should have posted these weeks ago but I started to write a rant, (about the diet flogging numpty who recently caused a twitter shitstorm claiming if you can't fit into the jeans you wore at 21 you're at risk of type 2 diabetes regardless of BMI), and found myself getting so wound up I came to a grinding halt à la Quora burn-out. Which is a shame because I may never again have an opportunity to employ the phrase "paradoxical flapdoodle", but c'est la vie.

Sadly, as soon as the weather changes, it becomes more of a challenge to photograph indoors, which is why my feet and ankles are shrouded in mystery in all my head-to-toe shots. I'm delighted to report, however, that both my pairs of Ecco sneakers look quite fetching with these River Island culottes.

See?

I am absolutely besotted with the culottes by the way, which you can find here reduced to a mere fifteen quid, should you find yourself similarly enamoured. Annoyingly the matching jacket has scarcely been reduced at all but I keep checking just in case.

I find it hard to rock a pale pastel palette without looking like I've carked it, but these slightly brighter shades just about work. The colours put me in mind of a Fiorucci rain jacket I had in the early 80s. It was actually plastic – the soft kind that splits – and I was forever patching it up on the inside with masking tape. Eventually I had to concede defeat and consign it to the bin but I've never forgotten it, nor the compliments it garnered on grey rainy days. I will never understand the need to blend into the crappy weather the moment summer breathes its last. I despair of my fellow countrymen sometimes.

You've seen this hi-lo River Island sweater before. Believe it or not I nearly chucked it in the charity bag at the start of the year – and I'm so glad I didn't, because it's absolutely the perfect colour and length to wear with these. (#apple-tips. You're welcome).

The cropped H&M sweatshirt, (which my BFF refers to as my Britney Spears sweatshirt *snort!*), was also a lucky find.

Ack! Could thes pics be any grainier if they tried?! I'll try to do better next time, Tumblr.

Toodles!

[buttercupsfrocks]

As you know, Tumblr, I'm not a fan of online shopping, though thanks to Covid, I'm a good deal better than I used to be. I blame the pre-internet catalogues of old. Everything I ever bought from one proved to be a dismal failure, and sending them back was such a faff I rarely bothered, leaving me disappointed as well as out of pocket. Mid-pandemic I finally let go of the past and learned to bite the bullet if a garment calls to my heart, instead of umming and aahing until the damned thing's sold out. Returns are a lot simpler in the digital age, even if I would rather poke my own eyes out than have to deal with Hermes, (the infamously slapdash delivery company not the purveyor of fine silk scarves, obvs). Plus these days it really is a case of having to shop online, as several of the companies I favour don't offer a bricks and mortar alternative. Some of those that do, however, seriously piss me off.

I'm sure it'll come as no surprise to you that this magnificent Monki frock, (cotton, not polyester, as I'd first assumed seeing it on the 'gram), called to my heart like an operatic diva complete with horned headgear and dustbin lids on her baps. But, prior to a chance meeting with a plain white version of the style instore, (which I'll probably dye at some point), I'd totally ruled it out. Monki's iffy sizing advice had convinced me it would be way too tight across the bust. This is an XL by the way and accommodates my currently size 22/24 bod perfectly.

I have a lot of Monki clothes. They're colourful, affordable, offer amazing prints and quite a few oversized designs, but they don't make it easy on those of us who'd rather shop in person. Yesterday, having clocked a ton of stuff I liked on the website , I decided to brave the tube to Westfield in a medical grade mask that made me feel like Hannibal Lecter and sweat like a pig. Of the numerous potential A/W wardrobe scores I'd earmarked online there were precisely two pieces. (Neither of the above, by the way, which I'm particularly taken with). One was in the wrong colour. The other one was the right colour but the wrong size. Meanwhile there they were patting themselves on the back online for expanding their size range to an XXL/22. Yeah, good luck finding a physical example.

There are three Monki shops in London and the stock is always a crap shoot. The physical sales are invariably half-arsed, and anomalies abound. Like ... the dress I would have bought had they had one in my size was a tenner off on their sale rack, while online, where they're promoting the hell out of their sale, the colour is current and full price. None of the other shades it comes in were available for me to look at instore either. Why FFS? Do they want my money or not?

I'm in the mood for some colour blocking this autumn, which means some plain basics in good colours. The tenner-off dress was the lilac number on the far right. It's a much more vibrant shade in real life.

I haven't tried on the Kin dress, which also comes in teal. I also searched – in vain it turned out – for these trousers in M&S...

That'll teach me. I was so dispirited by the whole shebang that I ended up in Ole and Steen drowning my sorrows and eating my feelings. In other words hot chocolate and a cinnamon social.

Here's to better shopping expeditions, Tumblr.

[buttercupsfrocks]

Hi Tumblr! Since two days ago was allegedly The Last Day Of Summer, I thought I’d better get a move-on with my posts as I have a backlog of summer OOTDs not yet shared. Plus it’s been a while since I spammed you with Ubi pics.

Last month was his one year adoptiversary. How is it possible for time to simultaneously whizz yet crawl by? And seriously, how handsome is he?

And only 10% bonkers! The other 90% being comprised of pure, unadulterated love. I consider myself very fortunate. 

Izzy considers herself cursed, even though he adores her and often greets her with a joyous yell and a head boop. Mind you I did notice her mellowing over the past couple of weeks, during which he went down with a nasty both-ends stomach thing that’s doing the rounds in my ‘hood just now. I’m just relieved she didn’t contract it too as it involved three injections, gross looking gloop mixed in with his food for 5 days, and the predictable unpleasantness with the thermometer. Unlike Dweezil, who would have to have been held down by four members of veterinary staff while roaring for their blood, Ubi was as good as gold. 

But on with the frocks...

Both of these were on my original Taking Shape wishlist and I have worn the heck out of them this summer, particularly the sleeveless one, which despite being polyester, is quite fine and surprisingly cool. 

I paired this one with a necklace I’d forgotten I’d thrifted a few months back. From a distance it almost looks like amethyst rather than four quids worth of plastic from Cancer Research. I thought it harmonised quite nicely with the paler of the purples in the print.

This oft-re-mixed cardi has developed a small hole in the back, but I can’t bring myself to retire it until I find a suitable replacement because it’s such a good colour and goes with so much in my wardrobe. (Like both of these frocks for instance). Thanks to eBay I’m also now the proud owner of 2 pairs of matching Gudrun Sjoden tights. I have wanted lime green tights for bloody ever. The nearest I’ve gotten was a pair of lime green popsox as a child in the early 70s. Worse still I think I wore them with my bibbed purple hotpants. You can just glimpse a Gudrun-clad ankle here.

A friend had recommended Sjoden tights ages ago but I wasn’t sure they’d be capacious enough to fit and, in fact, they only just do. And while they don’t roll down, which is imperative if you’re apple-shaped, (solidarity with all my fellow apples who’ve ever minced down the street with their knees clamped together because their tights had reached The Point Of No Return), but neither the quality or fit is a patch on Snag, whom I will endorse till I croak, they’re so good. These feel slightly rough-textured, but that might be because they’re made of recycled polyester. At any rate the moment Snag offer a lime green alternative I will be defecting.

As a brief aside I was chuffed to bits with these vintage repro bangles I thrifted in Chiswick earlier in the summer. I scored a red one in the same design as the sludgy green at the same time. No idea who made them but they were very reasonable and they look to be brand new too.

[buttercupsfrocks]

Many moons ago, when writing a novel, (yes, I finished it; no it isn’t published), and in search of colourful Lancastrian sayings for inclusion in a part set in Blackpool, I happened upon, "sat here like piffy on a toadstool". For some reason this caused my late bestie Jane no end of hilarity. So much so that she took to signing herself Piffy or Piff on all communications to me from that moment on. Initially I'd wondered whether the word was some regional derivation of pixie, like the Cornish pisky. But then I came across the variation, "piffy on  a rock cake", and decided it probably didn't matter. 

As you can see this Monki frock is entirely piffy/pisky/pixie free, despite the abundance of toadstools. This is an XXL. As I have the plain white seersucker version of the same dress in an XL, I could have sized down but I liked the idea of it looking deliberately oversized since that's the the way it's intended to look on a smaller woman. It can also be belted to ring the changes. Though, to be honest, I don't think many of my belts are quite up to the job post lockdown. 

Dunno about you but I think there's something a bit Yayoi Kusama about this ensemble. In as much as I feel I should be sitting, piffy-like, in a pastel pink room with an identical pattern on the walls, atop a giant toadstool. It definitely needed a suitably oversized accessory to set it off, so I went with this Taking Shape pendant, which I bought back when they had physical stores in the UK. Given my scrum-half shoulders, the frock’s high neck and billowy sleeve action, it needed something to break up the expanse and divert the eye.  

It's not often I say this but any further adornment would have been gilding the lily.

I did briefly consider having it shortened by my trusty tailor but with so many – Trigger warning! Hideous compound word coming up – midaxi  (ugh!) length frocks doing the rounds, I decided to leave the hem where it is.  

Shame the sun's buggered off. I'd like to have the opportunity to wear it again before the season of sludgy colours and pumpkin spiced lattes is upon us.